The Spite House(8)

“It all checks out so far as I can tell. I even looked up the lady who wrote the piece. She’s worked for major publishers, won a bunch of awards. It’s not just something off a random blog.”

Dess’s eyes floated to the byline. Emily Steen. She wanted to say something about not recognizing the name, as if that might mean something to her father, but held off. It wasn’t like she had off-top knowledge of renowned journalists. Instead she focused on what she picked up about the house’s owner. Eunice Houghton was a benevolent multimillionaire—if one could truly be such a thing—and founder of something called ValTuf Wellness, which had apparently been around for decades. They specialized in fitness electronics and personal health monitors that had begun as exclusives for professional trainers and trendy gyms before gradually becoming available to consumers directly. They owned patents that they licensed to better-known brands, which in turn used ValTuf components in their higher-end devices.

This was all well and good until Dess read how the original manufacturing site and headquarters in Degener had so tied Eunice to the local economy that she effectively owned the town. The money she brought in had benefits, as did the people she brought in from other manufacturing sites in larger cities. The financial viability and influx of out-of-towners contributed to Degener being an “oddly progressive anomaly for the area,” according to the article. But that was only part of it. Apparently, people in town feared angering Eunice or even her subordinates. She influenced the local school’s curriculum, particularly when it came to local history and ensuring it didn’t gloss over certain ugly events in America’s past, a good thing, but not something Eunice should have had a say in.

Similarly, years ago, she had all but ordered the mayor to declare Juneteenth an unofficial holiday, complete with a small carnival, and strongly “encouraged” any inessential businesses in town to shut down for the day. No one dared to object. Emily Steen applauded the outcome, but questioned the process that created it, which wasn’t really a process at all, just the whim of one powerful person. The story then ventured into Eunice’s ownership of the spite house, and the strangers she’d paid to live in the house—who never lasted very long.

“Dad, this lady seems a little bit out there, doesn’t she?”

“She built a tech empire. How out there can she be?”

Dess stared at her father like he’d suggested she pet a snake because “How venomous could it be?” He stared back for a few seconds before cracking a smile that let her know he knew how absurd his comment was.

“So you talked to her, too?” Dess said.

“No, just Dana. But I was invited to talk to Eunice tomorrow. In person.”

“You must have made a great first impression,” Dess said. “How much did you tell?”

Her father smiled in a sad way that stabbed at her heart. “I told her about the places we’ve been staying. A general—if inexact—idea of where we’re from, how far we’ve come, and how limited our options are. I took a gamble that it wouldn’t scare her off. I think it worked.”

Dess nodded, but still had a sour taste in her mouth. “I still don’t know. I think it’s weird.”

“It definitely is,” Eric said, “but it also might be a chance. We should at least check it out, see if it’s legit, don’t you think? Unless you know about some money coming in that I don’t know about.”

That statement—the way he said it—brought Dess back to her younger days, to when she was a little older than her sister was now, and a lot more rambunctious. Sometimes, when she’d really gotten out of hand at school, she would come home and Mom would ask, “Anything particularly interesting happen today?” Which was different from her usual “How was school?” or “Have fun at school?” When Dess would shake her head to say no, nothing interesting had happened, Dad would follow up with, “You’re sure? Nothing you think we ought to know about?” And that was when she would know that the teacher had already called and told one of them, who had then told the other, and they were just giving her a chance to confess, which she would typically turn down, because there was always a chance they were bluffing, right? Sure, she was probably already caught, but she always had to try.

“Hey, Dess,” Stacy said.

“What’s up, Staze?”

“If you’re worried about the house because it looks weird, you don’t have to be. It’s okay. I figured out why it’s so skinny.”

“Yeah? Why?”

Stacy snickered, then said, “Because it hasn’t had enough to eat.” Then she laughed like she’d told the best joke she’d ever tell.





CHAPTER 3



Eric



Hours later, at the motel, as soon as he was sure that Stacy was asleep, Eric said to Dess, “Since when do you have money to take her to eat?”

It would have been easier to leave the subject untouched, at least until tomorrow if not indefinitely. His distrust of anything that struck him as easy encouraged him to broach it now.

“I found an extra twenty, that’s all,” Dess said.

“Mm-hm.”

“If it’s that big of a deal to you I can just give you what I have now.”

“It’s not about that, and you know it,” Eric said. “And if twenty was all the extra you ‘found,’ you’d have held on to it.”